


what does it take (how long must i wait?)

by armyofbees



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Drunken Confessions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Season/Series 07 Finale, and he gets to grieve properly, cosmo's only in here like twice but know that i love him, he's so angry, keith is in the hospital, please calm down, shiro gets closure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 10:20:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15683466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armyofbees/pseuds/armyofbees
Summary: They pass the wine back and forth and talk about asinine things until the moon is high. The conversation turns to talking about life before all of this, before Voltron, before Kerberos, and then they stop. They go quiet. And they don’t talk about Adam.Another drink. They’re getting low on wine. Keith is starting to doubt his ability to climb back into his room. “You remember… the fight.”





	what does it take (how long must i wait?)

**Author's Note:**

> my thoughts on s7, condensed into a 5000 word fic. well, i say "condensed". also, there are past shiro/adam elements because, you know, adam died very suddenly, but i'm not going to tag it as such because crosstagging is rude.
> 
> anyway, i just want shiro and keith to be happy.
> 
> a list:  
> \- [This Place Is A Prison](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMgoQBHx12g) by The Postal Service  
> \- [Going To Port Washington](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dvijk6G7QU) by The Mountain Goats  
> \- [Meet Me In The Woods](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJOsLdBqbPA) by Lord Huron  
> \- [Sleeping In](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3eb5g9NH30) by The Postal Service  
> \- [Bounty On My Head](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keGQ8vaK36k) by Grizfolk

It’s cold in the hospital. Dry. Something rattles in his lungs when he breathes, upsets his throat and doesn’t quite tickle enough to set him off coughing. He asks Krolia to open the window because she won’t let him stand up and when she does, it gets colder. Autumn, then. Days pass.

He slept for two weeks, she tells him, holding his hand and trying not to show how glad she is to see him alive. Kolivan — they came to Earth together just days ago, worried as hell — puts a hand on her shoulder and Keith feels stupidly like he has parents again.

He falls asleep when they leave, and when he drifts back to half-consciousness — how long has he been out? God, to be able to process time again — he feels a weight on his hand, warm and human. His eyes are bleary but he can make out the solid outline of Shiro, head bowed. His fingers are interlaced with Keith’s. Keith’s addled brain can’t quite work up the mobility to speak, but he squeezes Shiro’s hand, ever so faintly. Shiro looks up at him, and Keith registers a tired, saddened look in his eyes that lifts when he meets Keith’s gaze, but Keith’s vision falters and he surrenders to a watery sleep. He doesn’t dream, but he aches for something he doesn’t know. Shiro’s gone when he wakes again.

The sheets they give him are fine but by the time he’s fully lucid again — their painkillers are horrible and he can’t think straight — can’t think at all — for days — he’s already restless. The blankets rub his legs the wrong way and he aches to be able to stand. His heart, his breath, his thoughts grow more and more frantic — he has to _move,_ keep _moving_ — until he can’t sleep, can’t do anything but drum his fingers and hate.

Another two days and he tries to stand on his own. He waits until visiting hours are up and the nurses are on break and he kicks off the covers, sliding carefully off the bed. The soles of his feet are weak with disuse and his toes feel alien against the tile. He slowly bends his knees, straightens them, and rolls his heels against the ground. He feels exhilarated.

He takes one step, then another, and his joints creak in protest. He feels like skin and bones. Another step, and then he remembers his IV, and then his heart monitor, all too late. The IV drip, attached to the wall that his bed backs up to, is immovable. His heart monitor lets the nurses know when his heart rate reaches abnormal levels — he can feel his blood rushing. He’s trapped here by design, chained to this hospital bed.

The IV catches first, ripping at the skin of his arm. He stumbles, hissing and scared. It’s dark and he can’t see where he falls, can only feel the tearing in the soft crook of his elbow.

And then the nurses are surrounding him, holding him down, and he shouts that he saved the world, god dammit, saved the universe, he should be able to walk on his own. He should be able to — and there’s the prick of a needle — and nothing matters anymore except that he’s falling limp — and his arm, his arm feels fine, why is there blood? — and what was he saying? — and his vision is spotty and then dark.

When he wakes again, there’s a bandage on his arm and he has new leg restraints.

“It’s for your own good,” Krolia tells him, but Cosmo sniffs them suspiciously and Kolivan’s face exudes poorly hidden disgust. It’s embarrassing and they all know it. It’s only a few weeks, Krolia promises. He feels like throwing up.

Shiro’s busy, and Keith can’t fault him for not visiting as often. In fact, he doesn’t visit at all in the next week. It would be more upsetting if Keith wasn’t high off his ass half of that time but it still stings a little. Stings, that is, in the dull, sluggish way that things do when life is a drug-induced haze of half-formed memories and words and images.

The next time Keith sees Shiro is as he’s waking up. His biorhythms haven’t quite realized that he’s in the hospital, with no schedule save for meds and nothing to do for hours on end, so he still wakes at dawn. He itches to stand, to fight, but he’s a little pathetic and afraid of the IV and the nurses.

Keith opens his eyes just as the doors are sliding shut behind Shiro. They lock gazes for a moment, Keith groggy and a little hazy, Shiro alert and so, so relieved.

“Mornin’,” Keith mumbles. “What’re you doing here?” Because Morning Keith doesn’t know what friendship or subtlety is.

Shiro offers a patient smile, coming to sit in the chair nearest the bed. “Just making sure you’re okay.”

“Let me outta the goddamn hospital,” Keith demands, slurred, “and I’ll be golden.”

“God, what are they giving you?” Shiro asks instead of acknowledging that. He peers at Keith’s bandaged arm with the IV running up past his face to the drip.

“I know, right? How much morphine’s one kid really need?” Keith laughs at his own expense because he’s at least aware enough to know he looks, feels, and sounds like shit. Shiro just looks worried. “Open the window?”

Shiro nods, stands to undo the latch.

“Nurses always close it. ’S real annoying, ’specially since they know I like it open.” Keith makes a vague gesture with one hand. “What do they know though, right?” A dry huff.

Shiro smiles faintly. He cracks the window and frowns. “You must be cold, though. I can see why they’d want it shut.”

Keith shakes his head and motions for Shiro to sit down again. “’S too dry when it’s shut. Can’t breathe.”

Shiro’s brow furrows. “How… are you doing, Keith?”

“Feelin’ horrible,” Keith says tonelessly. “Can’t stand up on my own, can’t even move my fuckin’ —” he stops, takes a breath. “Can’t move my feet. I don’t even know what’s… happening. What Earth’s like. Can’t even look out my own window.” He’s at the wrong angle and the blinds are drawn. The nurses never open them for him.

Shiro wordlessly stands again and opens the blinds. Keith feels a twinge in his chest that screams, cries, _You care, you care, and you’re the only one who gets it._ Then Shiro asks, “Your feet?”

“Can’t move ’em,” Keith says tiredly. He nods at the restraints, hidden by his blankets that feel like weights, like shackles.

Shiro understands though. His face goes dark and thunderous. Keith would tell him not to do anything stupid, except he wants — needs — the restraints off and he’s pretty sure the Garrison will give Shiro anything he asks at this point.

To Shiro’s credit, he doesn’t immediately storm out. He sits down and he looks at Keith, eyes softened. It’s a better look on him, Keith decides, than fury. When Shiro gets angry, Keith thinks immediately of a destroyed space station, of hundreds of Shiros, plummeting fast towards an anonymous planet, towards death, and amidst all of it, amidst everything, them. Keith and Shiro and a visceral terror of _he’s going to kill me. He’s going to kill me and he’ll never know and I’m going to die by his hand before he ever knows and — “I love you.”_

Keith prefers not to think about that.

“I have to be in a meeting in half an hour,” Shiro says. “Let’s see if we can get you caught up on everything that’s happened.”

Keith forgets half of everything, of course, but he could listen to Shiro talk for days. It’s not so bad if he has to ask him again tomorrow.

By that afternoon, the nurses remove the restraints. Keith stares them down as they do. He feels like an animal being caged and tagged, and he hates it.

The next morning, they remove the IV. They say they’re keeping him for at least another week to monitor his status and let him rest but it doesn’t matter to him. They’re letting him stand now. They’re letting him walk.

Keith takes full advantage of the emancipation from his bed — he makes three laps around his wing of the hospital by seven in the morning. He stops in Pidge’s room once. Cosmo’s with him and Pidge grins widely when they enter. It looks like they’re in the same predicament — she’s got nothing to prove she’s a patient except a plastic bracelet with her ID and room number, and she’s leaning against the window sill when he enters.

“Keith!” she exclaims. Then, “Cosmo!” as the wolf jumps up at her, demanding attention.

“I haven’t seen you around,” she tells Keith once Cosmo has calmed and contented himself to docile pets. “How’ve you been? Everyone else is almost out of here, you know. Lance kept saying we should spread the rumor that you were in a coma, but we figured that was a bad idea, since we didn’t really know what was up with you either.” She pauses. “You weren’t in a coma, right?”

Keith just smiles. God, he’s missed her. He’s missed the whole team. “Sort of. Not anymore, though. Well, unless you count the fact that they pump me so full of morphine that I might as well be dead.”

Pidge makes a face. “Sounds unpleasant. That’ll make Lance’s week, though.”

“He’d have a field day whatever you tell him and you know it. He’s probably just happy to be out of here.”

Pidge just shrugs. She sinks to the ground with Cosmo, who is demanding more pets. Since meeting the team, Cosmo has gotten exponentially more affectionate. Keith doesn’t know quite what to make of it, but it’s… probably a good thing.

“What happened to you?” Keith asks, joining her on the floor. “What about Hunk? And Allura?”

“Nothing special here,” Pidge says. “I’m just glad that I get to spend time with my family. Who cares if I’m in a hospital, right? I’ve got them.” She stops, like she expects an answer, but Keith just frowns. Pidge looks down, sheepish. “Anyway, uh… Hunk is fine. He was a little drained for a while, but he’s got his family back. That was good of you, by the way. Thank you for doing that for him.”

“He does so much for us. He deserves it,” Keith says simply.

Pidge nods. “And Allura…” She trails off, troubled. “She says there’s something that she’s working on, some sort of project. She won’t tell me what it’s about. I think she’s worried about it. It’s… affecting her.” The two of them are quiet, Keith pensive and Pidge worried. She fidgets with her hands, resting them on Cosmo’s flank. Cosmo nuzzles her, butting his head into her hand. She smiles then, all signs of doubt erased from her face. “It’s Allura, though. She’ll tell us when she’s ready. Or when she thinks _we’re_ ready.”

Keith can see through the lie — Pidge is concerned, scared, even. She trusts Allura but is afraid of what the princess might not be telling her. He doesn’t mention it.

The next week crawls by, day after boring day. Shiro visits him on Wednesday but he can only stay for ten minutes before he’s off to another conference. Keith takes him on a walk around the hospital.

“You know this place like the back of your hand,” he comments.

Keith shrugs. “It happens.”

Shiro snorts and glances away. “I’ve missed talking to you.”

“I’ve missed you,” Keith replies, and they share a smile.

On his last night at the hospital he opens the window, jimmies the screen, and climbs out onto the sill. The stars are comfortingly familiar. He’s reminded jarringly of how long he’s been flying in foreign skies.

There’s a ledge just below the window and he carefully climbs down onto it, shuffling so he can sit on it and let his feet dangle. He stares out over the pseudo-city spread out around him.

Turning the Garrison base into a center for civilization is going to be one of the hardest parts of this whole debacle, Shiro told him. They are the largest, most well-equipped stronghold of humanity, so obviously people are going to congregate around them. The issue is that it’s a military base, and they need a home for civilians. There’s been talk of renovating the nearby cities, but that’ll take years. For now, they have to make do.

Not for the first time, Keith is glad he’s only the leader of Voltron and not the entirety of humanity. Though, he thinks darkly, there isn’t much of humanity left to lead.

He’s stuck between thoughts of hopeful unity and the daunting task of integrating humans and aliens when suddenly there’s a hand on his shoulder and he startles so bad that he nearly falls off of the ledge. He barely contains a loud curse and turns to glare at Shiro, who is peering down at him from his window, his new arm hovering at Keith’s shoulder. Keith is really gonna need to get used to that.

“Thought I’d find you out here,” Shiro says, already climbing out the window. Once he’s standing on the ledge, he reaches back inside and produces a bottle of wine from inside the hospital room. “Brought you a parting gift.”

Alarms go off in Keith’s brain. “Parting gift?”

Shiro blanches. “No, not… I meant you leaving the hospital.” He settles beside Keith and opens the bottle. It’s dark red. Classy. Shiro pauses before offering it to Keith. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Keith’s smile is almost bitter as he accepts the wine. “Good to hear. And no dying either.”

“Roger that.”

Keith snorts and trades a look with Shiro that says, _I’m laughing, but if you do end up dead, I’ll fucking kill you._ He takes a sip of the wine straight from the bottle and contemplates the endless sky.

“I can’t wait to see how far you’ve come with integrating alien trades and tech,” Keith says, passing the bottle back to Shiro who takes a swig, hangs his head, and lets out a long sigh.

“Please,” Shiro says, still looking down, “if I have to talk about this with one more person, you especially, I’ll… throw myself off of this building, probably.”

Keith laughs, sharp and surprised. “I didn’t know you had a sense of humor, Captain.”

Shiro gives him a look and shakes his head. “I’m going to drink more of this wine, and by the time I start cracking puns, you’ll wish I didn’t.”

Keith snatches the bottle from him and takes a drink. “If I see you make a pun in my lifetime, I… don’t actually know what I’ll do.”

“I have to be a little more tipsy than this for that to happen.”

“You know, Shiro, this is dangerous. We could fall and die or… something.”

“Oh, leave me alone.” Shiro steals the bottle back.

 _“Jesus,_ you degenerate.”

Laughing, “Fuck off!”

“He swears!”

Shiro rolls his eyes. “You’ll never hear it again. Hope you cherish that moment.”

“I cherish every moment with you,” Keith mocks. Shiro laughs.

They pass the wine back and forth and talk about asinine things until the moon is high. The conversation turns to talking about life before all of this, before Voltron, before Kerberos, and then they stop. They go quiet. And they don’t talk about Adam.

Another drink. They’re getting low on wine. Keith is starting to doubt his ability to climb back into his room. “You remember… the fight.”

Shiro hesitates. “There were a lot of fights, Keith.”

“No. Our fight.” Keith waves a hand. “Or, I guess, me and your clone’s fight.”

“I…” Shiro is silent for a moment. “Yeah. I remember.”

“Long fuckin’ time ago, wasn’t it?”

Shiro doesn’t reply.

“Doesn’t feel like it, does it?” Keith asks.

“No.”

Keith looks at him and he looks back, eyes trailing over Keith’s face. Shiro looks upset. Almost angry, but…

“I did that to you.” He reaches out, his fingers nervous and guilty, brushing against Keith’s scar.

Oh. Keith doesn’t know how to approach this. “No,” he decides on.

“Yes, I did,” Shiro insists. “I did that to you.”

“It wasn’t you,” Keith says. “Not really. Shiro, I _know_ you’d never hurt me.”

Shiro doesn’t reply. He takes the bottle when Keith offers it. Neither of them speak, gazing out at the horizon. Keith turns to look at Shiro. He’s nursing the wine bottle, melancholy, troubled thoughts manifesting in his pinched brow and the hard line of his mouth. Keith reaches out and rests a hand on his shoulder, not quite cradling his neck. Shiro closes his eyes.

“You said…” Shiro starts, fiddles with the foil on the bottle’s neck.

“I say a lotta things, S.”

Shiro’s hands still and he looks at him. “You said you loved me.”

Silence falls like an executioner’s axe — short and stifling, choking.

And Keith’s heart stops. Briefly, terribly, he can’t breathe, and his stomach drops through his feet and he thinks he might throw up. The taste of bile and alcohol claws its way up his throat. “I did,” he manages, shaky. He’s _so_ goddamn obvious. He’s going to throw up. He needs more wine.

He doesn’t look at Shiro, can’t bear to see the look on his face. _Breathe_ — he feels like he’s tipping over the edge — of what? — slowly, slowly, and he can’t stop it. Can’t stop anything.

“Did you mean it?” Shiro asks, barely a whisper.

At length, Keith looks at him, hurt. “Of course,” he replies.

Shiro meets his gaze. They’re both quiet, watching each other breathe, shift uncomfortably. Finally, Shiro breaks the silence: “I just… I would’ve killed you, Keith.” For a second, it seems like he’s going to leave it at that. Then, “Sometimes I — wake up thinking I did. But — you said _that,_ and it stopped me. It… For a second, it mattered again — that I was Shiro, and you were my best friend. My family. And I couldn’t…” Shiro’s tone turns bitter. “But I guess it didn’t matter in the end. I still would’ve killed you.”

Keith doesn’t reply. He studies Shiro closely — his scar, his chin, the way his hair sometimes falls into his eyes. His eyes, watching Keith, somehow desperate, somehow like he wants Keith to know something that he barely even understands himself.

“But you didn’t,” Keith says eventually. “’M still here. Can’t get rid of me that easily.”

Shiro laughs quietly. “No, I guess not.” He has a look in his eyes, like he’s watching something perfect fall into place. “What I’m trying to say, Keith, is… I love you too.”

Keith’s stomach flips again. He stares at Shiro for several long, heavy heartbeats, trying to go back and unpack that whole conversation in his head. He’s too drunk for this. He’s not even _close_ to drunk enough for this. “You mean…” he says eventually, because he can’t parse Shiro’s words on his own.

Shiro folds his hands sheepishly. “I mean I love you, Keith. More than you could ever know. You’re… all I have left.”

Keith blinks. He is, isn’t he? Who, realistically, would’ve visited Shiro in the hospital? _You’re all I have left._ “Oh. _Oh.”_

“Oh?” asks Shiro.

“Yeah,” confirms Keith. “I… yeah.” Neither of them know what they’re saying anymore, but they don’t need words as Keith leans in and kisses him. It’s short — Keith doesn’t trust himself not to fall off of the ledge they’re sitting on — but it doesn’t really matter. As Keith pulls back, steadying himself against the wall, Shiro looks so peaceful, backed by the dark hospital wall, and past that, the dim lights of the Garrison. An unconscious smile tugs at Keith’s lips.

“I love you,” he says, for the novelty of it, for the sake of it being said while they’re okay. It sounds so much better when it’s not desperate, not a fight for his life. When he knows he’ll get to say it again.

Shiro smiles like he understands.

They sit out on the ledge, finishing off the wine and pointing out stars. At some point, Shiro takes his hand.

“You think we’ve been there?” The last star in Draco.

“Statistically? No. But I’d like to think we have.”

Keith hums, amused, and they watch the sky shift slowly, surely.

“Come sleep,” Keith says after a while.

“Hm?”

“Sleep here. ’M tired and there’s no point in you goin’ home.” Keith glances at him.

“Oh,” Shiro says. “Yeah, okay.”

They climb back through the window and Keith pauses for a moment to look at Shiro in the half-dark, something tugging at his chest. He wants so badly to remember this moment.

It’s a tight fit, being a hospital bed, but eventually Shiro settles in behind him, wrapping his arms around Keith’s waist. He presses a kiss to the back of Keith’s head, mumbles a goodnight. Keith doesn’t realize he’s falling asleep until he’s dreaming in muffled voices and bright shadows, content and warm.

Shiro’s gone when he wakes up, head throbbing with a headache, but a nurse comes in and tells him he’s free to go, thank god. He doesn’t give the room a second glance as he leaves.

Krolia is waiting for him in the hospital mess and she gives him a cursory, questioning glance as he downs three glasses of water in a row. She doesn’t say anything about it as she walks him out of the building though. “What’s your plan?” she asks as they wander down what passes for a main boulevard. Transports and drones trundle by and they pass the occasional civilian, going to visit someone in the hospital or trailing behind a transport.

Keith considers. Finding Shiro can wait. Last night is a mess of shadowy memories and mostly-forgotten conversations, but Keith remembers their last exchange. At least, he remembers how it ended. Everything else is coming back to him gradually and half-shrouded in drunken hallucination, muddled by the headache. He needs time to think. “Let’s go see Dad.”

They’re only afforded a two-person speeder, so Cosmo shares Krolia’s seat. She only complains a little bit. The graveyard is small, rural, barely twenty minutes from the base. It’s familiar, despite the fact that Keith hasn’t been home in years. God, it’s been _years._

His dad’s grave is where it’s always been. It leaves him feeling nostalgic and missing home.

He lets Krolia visit first — she waited for him to wake up before coming to see the cemetery, and Keith can practically feel the grief radiating from her. She kneels before the headstone and whispers something he can’t hear. Keith puts a hand on Cosmo’s head.

Krolia doesn’t speak. She kneels, eyes closed, and at one point she cries. Keith moves to hug her but she pushes him away and he gets the message. It’s tragically intimate, watching her do this. Then she stands and dusts herself off and nods to him, eyes still a little puffy. Keith does pull her into a hug then, and she doesn’t protest. She releases him after a few seconds and steps back. “Talk to your father. It’s been a long time.”

Keith sits. He folds his hands in his lap and looks at the stone as he says, “Hi, Dad.” It’s pockmarked around the letters of his father’s name and there’s a new lichen growing on one corner. He feels like he’s been away for centuries.

“Sorry it’s been so long,” he murmurs, running two fingers over the lichen. “I had to save someone important to me. I had to save him several times, actually.” He smiles. “I’ve told you about him — Shiro. I said you’d like him before all of this, and I still think you would. He’s… a lot like you. Too brave for his own good, sometimes. God, everything he’s put me through…” Keith’s smile fades and he takes a deep breath. “I met Mom. She told me… everything. Having her, _knowing_ her… I’ve learned things about myself that I couldn’t have even imagined. Oh, and I went to space. I guess that was implied. And… I saved the universe a few times. Not me, not really — I had help.”

He had — has — Voltron now, and he’s still… getting used to that. To leaning on them. To being their family. He would kill for them, he thinks distantly, and he has. Somehow, kneeling at his father’s grave, watching time take its toll on the only part of him Keith has left… it’s not terrifying anymore. The team is his family, and the thought brings something gentle and light to his chest. Brings him comfort and hope — brings him home.

“I met my family,” he continues. “Not just Mom, but everyone — Lance, Hunk, Pidge, Allura, Coran, Kolivan. Shiro.” Keith thinks about everyone and their families. About his family. “I love them, but it’s good to be back.” There’s nothing else, really, that he wants to say. If he starts talking about the team he might never stop, and _that_ thought scares him. He nods to himself with finality and stands.

He turns to face Krolia. She looks proud. “That was sweet.” Her gaze flickers to the ground in front of the grave.

“You miss him,” Keith says.

Krolia smiles, small and sad, and nods. “Every day.”

Keith looks down. He understands.

Krolia flies them back to the base. Keith sits in the back seat, petting Cosmo and watching the bleak desert scenery pass by. They lingered at the grave for longer than they probably needed to, and it’s past noon by now. He wonders where Shiro is.

The sun is setting when Keith finally finds him. The memorial wall — wall of the dead, he thinks morbidly — shines dully in its industrial lighting, the bronze names and faces lackluster in the dark room. There aren’t any windows. The ceiling is high and cavernous but it doesn’t matter — it’s suffocating.

In front of the wall is a raised pedestal with a large memorial plaque atop it. Shiro sits on the edge, forehead resting defeatedly on open palms, facing the wall. The moment he walks in, Keith knows exactly which name he’s thinking about. Keith feels a pang in his heart and shakes it off — jealousy is so, so childish in the face of death. He moves quietly, not wanting to disturb the solemn atmosphere, and comes to stand next to Shiro.

“He died a hero,” Keith says, not sure how to offer his comfort. He sounds to himself like every person whose pity he didn’t want back when his dad died.

Shiro breathes out slowly and looks up from his hands, eyes trained on the wall. “That’s what Iverson said. Somehow, it doesn’t change anything.”

It bites. Keith glances down. Comforting people has always been hard, but this is Shiro. This is _Shiro._ “When I lost my dad people kept telling me that. It just… made me never want to be a hero. I figured that if all heroes ever did was leave people behind, well…” He pauses. “That’s stupid though. The world needs heroes. We wouldn’t… we wouldn’t be anywhere without them. And we wouldn’t be anywhere without him.” Hesitantly, Keith rests a hand on Shiro’s shoulder. “We wouldn’t be anywhere without you, either.”

Shiro covers Keith’s hand with his own and exhales again, slow and thoughtful. Carefully, like he’s selecting every word, “I don’t think I miss him. I knew when I left that I’d never be able to really see him again. I knew that it would take years of my life and he… he told me that I couldn’t expect him to be here when I got back.” Shiro shudders suddenly, something close to tears. “I guess I just hate that he’s gone. I hate that no one else will ever get to meet him, or know him, or — or love him. He’s… the world’s missing so much.”

“I’m sorry,” Keith says.

“And he doesn’t even have a proper grave,” Shiro continues sadly. Keith doesn’t know how to reply. Shiro tries to backpedal: “This is good, though. The memorial is important. At least… at least he —” and he breaks off, choked.

Keith sits down next to him and grasps his hand. He doesn’t know what else to do. Shiro bows his head, presses their hands to his chest, pained. Keith wraps him in a one-armed hug and doesn’t speak, doesn’t know how to. He doesn’t know who to blame this anger he has on — this righteous fury for everything that’s happened, because everyone at fault is already dead or dying. And Keith hates that there’s nothing they can do but _accept_ it.

Shiro pulls away after a while, when his shoulders are done shaking and his eyes are clearer. He rubs the tear streaks from his face hastily, and it’s so upsettingly vulnerable that Keith has to look away. “Thank you. I think I needed that.”

“You need a better support system,” Keith tells him. “And a nap.”

Shiro blinks, then chuckles wetly. “Yeah. I do.”

“C’mon,” Keith says, standing and pulling Shiro with him. “How long have you been here? Let’s take a walk.”

Shiro follows him outside, where the autumn chill catches up to them quickly. Keith lets Shiro pull him to his side and wrap an arm around his shoulders. They don’t talk much — they don’t have to. The sun sets, and they walk. And the world is saved, and they are saved by each other, again, and they walk — towards the setting sun, towards the future — together.

**Author's Note:**

> now that you've read this far, in this house we respect adam as a character & the fact that he & shiro had a relationship
> 
> thanks for reading!! i hope you enjoyed. feel free to drop a comment/kudos, or come by my [tumblr](https://senagorihs.tumblr.com/) to say hi!


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